It’s Saturday morning, and we are a little over 24 hours away from Elliot’s 3rd birthday party. I am going to describe the events leading up to it, so that other parents going through the same social issues will have a friend.

Social issues? Well, let me explain that this is the first birthday where we invited people outside of our family. Elliot was invited to a few birthdays, and he couldn’t wait to sit in the birthday throne at Monkey Joe’s. His dad and I debated over spending the money for a child so young, but Elliot kept asking about his party there. We caved. Monkey Joe’s has different party packages, and we decided on the one with eight kids. The one with more kids was way too expensive for us, and so there you have it.

Nearly every child on the guest list would be from Elliot’s day care class, and I started fretting right away. How do you invite some kids and not all of them? It’s a dollar issue, not a personal one. I asked his teacher to tell me the names of the children that Elliot seemed to enjoy spending the most time with, and — of course — the ones equally pleased to be around him. I used the invitation PDF from the Monkey Joe website, and I discreetly made sure they were distributed. Again, I love every kid in that class. It’s a money thing.

As the RSVP date approached, this past Wednesday, we began biting our nails. Monkey Joe’s allows for a party reschedule during the next 12 months, but that does nothing for a little boy waiting for his big day. It’s the holidays and everyone is busy, but RSVPs are important. (If I seem perturbed, it’s because we spent an unnecessary $800 on our wedding reception because of RSVP-related issues.) As of Wednesday evening, only three children were coming. You still pay for eight.

At this point you can’t help but not have nice thoughts. If six other names had been written down, would they have come to the party? Of course, you can’t find out. You don’t want some parent asking why their son or daughter wasn’t on the Varsity team. Nobody wants to be second string, but it’s not personal! It’s simply trying to have my child have guests at his birthday party, people to sing, people to jump on inflatable bouncy things alongside him.

We started inviting older children of our friends — figuring they’d still get pizza, cake and the joy of Monkey Joe’s. You don’t feel entirely good about everything, though, because in the back of your mind you worry that the folks who didn’t RSVP will all show up. You pay an extra $10 a head for more than eight kids. Sure, we’d do it, but at that point you might have just gone to the more expensive package.

Day care is Elliot’s primary social circle. They are the children he knows and plays with on a daily basis. He has no cousins in Savannah, and we don’t have many friends with children his age. I know there are more families in town in the same boat, and I’m telling you it’s tough.

There’s a third string of invites that we began contemplating. What if he had all adults at his party? Who could we invite and put through the “thrill” of a couple hours inside a gymnasium-size room of screaming kids? (Did I say screaming? I mean well-behaved cherubs.) We started going down the list of civic leaders and city officials that could make the cut.

Let’s see, we bought a Christmas tree from the Lion’s Club. Check. He might be into the Knights of Columbus or the Hibernians. Oh, oh, call the League of Women Voters! Get Edna on the horn. I started thinking of every one who had ever been kind to my child. Sharon at the desk at the JEA was really nice to him when we went for water aerobics. Should we just invite our whole water aerobics class from three years ago? After all, they knew Elliot in utero and made a fuss over him even before his central nervous system was fully developed.

I don’t know who is coming, but I’ll be tickled if the Hell’s Angels make it. Christmas ones are busy.

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